Pocket Reviews : Castlevania Circle of the Moon GBA

Pocket Reviews
Castlevania Circle of the Moon for the Game Boy Advance
Published by Konami
Side scrolling action RPG

Ever since I played Symphony of the Night on the PSP I have been seeing more and more of these so called "Metroidvania" games, a Castlevania game with a gigantic explorable area ala Metroid. Add an element of RPG into the game (equipable armor, weapon and level grinding) and you have a usually good mix... and while this game has these elements it is also missing something. Mainly the story.

Now mind you the story element of Symphony of the Night, or Portrait of Ruin on the DS, they are not Final Fantasy level storytelling but its there at least. There is practically no story here. After the intro,  where you and two others who I barely remember confront a newly resurrected Dracula only to end up seperated, you plow through a few hours of gameplay before you finally locate a piece of story. A small piece. By now several story moments would have occurred already in Symphony or Portrait, by comparison.

The game runs like Symphony lite. Same Metroidvania massive game environment as Symphony but seemingly none of the bells and whistles. There are sections you cant explore until you uncover the means to pass, done through eight "magic spells" enhancing your character. There is also this thing called DSS Cards. 10 Action and 10 Attributes... I have no idea if theyre doing anything, maybe because I only found 1 card each but still...

As GBA games go it is a rather nice pick up. A pretty nice change of pace, and while it is a tad light on story and content it is overall a nice slice of side scrolling Castlevania to dig your fangs into.

Definitely a recommend for your emergency travel kit, as well as the casual retro Game Boy or DS Lite gamer. 4 stakes through the gaming heart out of 5. Find it, try it, enjoy it.

Need to get back on track review wise... next time lets wander back to the classic Game Boy and try out some old school Harvest Moon. That is our next review. That is next time... bouncing back and forth between the Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, DS and 3DS... and maybe the PSVita as it is on my shopping list for yearly tech upgrades this year... but that is coming up so stay tuned next time.